LOUISVILLE – A few mornings before last Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, trainer Bob Baffert was standing on the clockers’ stand at Churchill Downs, handicapping the race. The year before, Baffert’s Point Given was supposed to win, then go on the sweep the Triple Crown. Instead, the “Big Red Train” was fifth in the Derby before taking the Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

This time Baffert, who already won the Derby twice, was back with War Emblem, owned by Saudi Arabian prince Ahmed Salman, whose Thoroughbred Corp. also campaigned Point Given. But whereas Point Given was a home-bred, the prince only purchased War Emblem on April 11, five days after he won the Illinois Derby in front-running fashion, and despite his speed the black colt was an improbable longshot.

“The prince lost last year, maybe he’ll win this one,” said Baffert, who was the target of criticism for backing into the Derby with a colt he’d had for just three weeks. “That’s the way this race works.”

Then, commenting on what appeared then to be a wide-open race, he noted, “Whoever wins, everyone will probably say, ‘What an idiot I am for not seeing him. It was right in front of us.’ “

As the final odds showed, the public couldn’t make up its mind. Harlan’s Holiday, the favorite, went off at 6-1, the longest price on the choice in the Derby’s 128 years. Five other horses were under 10-1.

But as it turned out, the race wasn’t wide open at all. War Emblem – who nobody thought before or since was “right in front of us” – won by four lengths under Victor Espinoza, in front every step at 20-1.

That’s not the way Baffert saw the race beforehand, or so he claimed.

“I don’t think he’ll be loose on the lead,” Baffert said. “I think Wayne [Lukas, trainer of the speedy longshot Proud Citizen] and I will burn each other out by the far turn.”

Perhaps he was sending Lukas a message; if so, it worked, because Proud Citizen’s rider, Mike Smith, didn’t press War Emblem for the early lead, instead sitting a length-and-a-half back. That allowed both colts to lope along on an easy pace and still have energy left for the stretch. They ran 1-2 all the way, producing the biggest exacta, $1,300.80, in Derby history – unbelievable, considering that Baffert and Lukas combined to win five Derbys in the previous seven years.

Before the prince snagged War Emblem for nearly $1 million, another trainer, Elliott Walden, had looked into buying him, Baffert said, but turned him down when he didn’t “vet out.”

Knowing the colt “has some [physical] problems, all the good ones do,” Baffert didn’t ask a veterinarian to examine him. “I went to watch him gallop and vetted him myself. That’s the trainer’s job. The first time I worked him, I knew I had a Derby horse.”

Now, of course, comes the question: Can War Emblem capture the coveted Triple Crown, a feat not accomplished since 1978? Noting the way the Derby winner exploded in deep stretch, Baffert said, “The [mile-and-a-half] Belmont should be a walk in the park.

“But we’ve got the Derby, that’s the big jewel, so I’m not going to worry about it. [The problems] can catch up anytime, but so far they haven’t. If we win the Triple Crown, it was meant to be.”